Financial reports

The services business continues to develop and grew by 15% to SEK 541 million (469) where the organic growth was 7%. Our recurring revenues, i.e., revenues from contracted managed cloud and support services, continue to grow at a high pace. Overall, they increased by 18% to an annualized level of SEK 1,747 million (1,479) and organically they grew by 9%, with organic growth in all Business Units. The recurring revenues also increased sequentially, with a growth of 4% compared to the previous quarter. We concluded contracts for our managed cloud services of SEK 119 million (158), where Business Unit West showed high growth with several large contracts closed. Business Unit Central also closed larger deals, however with contracts that give the customer more flexibility in usage volumes, which thus is not fully reflected in the reported contracted volumes. Our assessment remains that the reduction in contracted volumes primarily is due to the timing of the closing of certain deals, and to some extent that customers request more flexible contracts, which reduces the contracted volume but has good possibility for growth in reported recurring revenues from cloud services going forward. The professional services business declines somewhat organically, primarily due to lower systems sales outside of the Nordics. Utilization continues to be good, while we see less competition for recruiting competence.

We are starting to see the effects of our cost program that we implemented in earlier quarters. We are 5% fewer employees than at the same time last year, while we deliver more services to our customers. The cost base is reducing according to plan compared to the first quarter this year, which impacts both the gross margin and sales and administration costs.
The gross margin after depreciation increased in the quarter from 22.5% to 23.5% with increases both in systems and services margins. The biggest increase is due to the cost saving program and earlier efficiencies in our service delivery, which has counteracted inflationary increases in other costs.

Adjusted EBITA declined during the quarter to SEK 72.8 million (78.3) corresponding to a margin of 6.8% (7.1), as the reduction in revenues wasn’t fully compensated by increased gross margins and organically lower sales and administration costs compared to last year.

We continue working closely with our important partners, and have received further awards during the quarter, such as Partner of the Year by Netapp in Sweden. We are also being recognized for our work to attract and retain employees and were again selected as one of Sweden’s 10 best IT companies for young people by “Årets Karriärföretag” (Career Company of the Year).

René Schülein has left the company during the quarter and Maria Gomez replaces him in the role of Business Unit Director, BU Central. Maria comes most recently from Microsoft Germany and has many years of experience from the German IT industry. The group management team and the company governance has also been strengthened with the appointment of Magnus Lönn as deputy CEO, in particular to contribute to the continued growth and development of the company.

During times of continued macroeconomic uncertainty, it feels very satisfactory that we continue to deliver stable results and strong cash flow while maintaining a good position in the market.